Terrorist tweets

Have you tweeted today? Or ever? I bet you have used Facebook today. As a country we fall in love with the unbridled technological progress that the great minds of our country afford us. It can do so much good for us — it connects us with long-lost friends, family and otherwise. It allows us to stay up to date, up to the minute in some instances, of events around the corner and around the world. All of this is absolutely fantastic when it helps us out, but we are often remiss in our consideration of the negative ramifications of these very same advances.

Today's Washington Times has a cover story titled "Terrorists discover uses for Twitter" that sheds light on the use of social media for the promulgation of terrorist propaganda. Twitter was created as a system for sending out group text messages but has evolved into a micro-blogging outlet where a celebrity like Charlie Sheen can have over 1 million followers, otherwise known as subscribers, who receive his messages the instant he presses "Tweet" (you see where I'm going with this). Imagine, the spontaneous gathering of several thousand terrorists called to action with a death knell of 140 characters or less. This type of mass dissemination has governments on high alert, and for good reason.

Armstrong Williams is on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside.